Georgia Mancio: ReVoice!

When the road offers two possible paths, the decision to turn left or right can have major consequences. If Georgia Mancio had taken the left-hand path, then she might now be carving out a career in movie production. She took the other route, thanks to a part-time job and a box set of albums, to become one of the UK's most innovative singers and lyricists. The cinema's loss was the music world's gain.

Fast-forward to 2010 and another pathway opens up: a route that leads to the creation of an exciting new music festival in the heart of London's jazz scene. Mancio becomes, almost inadvertently, the director of a festival devoted to the singer's artReVoice! is born. Three years later and Mancio is combining her careers as a singer and a festival organizer with admirable skill and enthusiasm.

among others. Surprisingly, her discography remains small, with just three albums on the listPeaceful Place (2003), Trapeze (2007) and Silhouette (2010), all released on her own Roomspin Records label. Her debut mixed standards with some Brazilian and Italian tunes. Trapeze was even more eclectic, with contemporary pop added to the mix, and the majority of the songs on Silhouette were originals, often co-written by Mancio and her bandmates. Each album has drawn praise from the critics and demonstrated Mancio's development as an artist and, later, as a songwriter.

Although Mancio comes from a family with a musical tradition, and she developed her own love of music at an early age, her own career as a professional singer started relatively late in her life. "My paternal grandparents were both professional classical musicians, but they lived in Italy, and by the time I knew them they'd stopped performing. My great-grandmother was from Uruguay. She was a pianist, too, but my dad didn't follow that path; the line got broken. I played classical flute when I was young, but I didn't take it too far. I didn't set out to be a singer: I didn't have a clue how to go about it, didn't know about the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, didn't know any musicians. I spent more time acting and ended up studying filmmaking."

It was the need to support herself financially during her film studies that led Mancio towards the center of the London jazz scene. "I worked part-time as a waitress at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club to support myself during my film studies. I took the job because I wanted something that wasn't going to be stressful or interfere with studying and because I loved jazz. That opened up a whole world to me; it demystified music not just because I saw so many great names but also because I got to know local musicians. I learned that while music is a passion, it's also a job.

"I was lucky. A couple of musicians were really kind and gave me advice about gigs, helped me put a demo together. Ironically, at the time, it was much harder to get started in the film industry than it was in music. I could go out and get my own gigs, find work as a singer. After a while, it became obvious that to succeed in either field you have to dedicate yourself totally, so I decided to concentrate on musicalthough I carried on working at Ronnie's, for about five years altogether.

"I left Ronnie's at the end of 1999 and turned professional. I took lessons, went on courses, but mostly I learnt on stage, in public. In the 12 years since then, I've carried on learning as I go. I do a bit of one-to- one teaching, but I earn my living as a performing singer, through gigs. As I've worked with more people, been exposed to more influences, I've moved on. That collaboration with others is still my main education. It brings out so much more than you can achieve on your own."

Early Influences

Mancio's love of jazz began when her father decided to expand his own musical horizons, introducing Frank Sinatra into the family home. " Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely (Capitol, 1958) was an early influence. My dad used to love classical music, so when I was young that's pretty much all we listened to at home. Then he decided to try a different direction and bought a jazz box set and the Sinatra album. I was about 8 or 10 years old, and Sinatra really struck a chord with me. The box set had some really great singers on it, too: Carmen McRae